College sports’ pivot to athlete compensation and free agency has prompted several power conference basketball programs to create advisory positions for renowned alumni. Steph Curry at Davidson, Jayson Tatum at Duke, Elizabeth Kitley at Virginia Tech, Trae Young at Oklahoma and Gordon Hayward at Butler are among the headliners.

Blessed with many former players thriving in the NBA, Virginia had myriad options for such a role. But the archetype was Malcolm Brogdon, and last month the Cavaliers and second-year coach Ryan Odom appointed this quintessential student-athlete as their “strategic advisor.”

“Any role, anything to do with the team, I wanted to be a part of it with Coach Odom,” Brogdon said during a half-hour phone interview this week. “… For me, it’s a great way to stay connected, a great way to give back to a program that has given me so much. I want to be a resource. I want to be of service to the guys in that locker room and the guys on that coaching staff.”

From 2011-16 at UVA, Brogdon earned a bachelor’s degree in history and master’s in public policy. A two-time All-American and the ACC Player of the Year and Defensive Player as a senior, he helped the Cavaliers win their first ACC Tournament championship in 38 seasons and reach the NCAA Elite Eight for the first time in 21 years.

Few, if any, players embodied the pillars established by then-coach Tony Bennett like Brogdon. Humility, passion, unity, servanthood and thankfulness.

Brogdon then embarked on an NBA career in which he was named the 2017 Rookie of the Year and 2023 Sixth Man of the Year. Shortly after he retired from the NBA last October, Brogdon received a call from Ronnie Wideman.

Wideman accompanied Bennett to Charlottesville in 2009 as an operations administrator and transitioned to a senior associate athletic director when Odom arrived last year. He pitched the advisory concept first to Brogdon and later to Odom and AD Carla Williams.

“Malcolm is so impressive,” Odom said. “I’m so excited for him to be a part of our program again. I have no doubt that he will be a tremendous mentor and resource not only for our players, but also our staff. His passion for Virginia is evident.

“He will share his experience here at UVA with our players and value that a Virginia degree can provide. His professional experience in the NBA will allow him to guide our players as they chase basketball dreams as well.”

That’s the beauty of Brogdon’s worldview, formed under his parents’ watchful eyes. Even as he fervently chased his NBA aspirations, he never neglected his education or lost his desire to address the abject poverty he first witnessed when, as a child, he and his two older brothers accompanied their parents to Ghana.

There, Jann Adams, a professor at Morehouse College, volunteered in a maternity ward, the boys and their father — Mitchell Brogdon is an attorney and former trial judge — at a preschool that was adjacent to a landfill. The mere scent of food emanating from the volunteers’ bus caused hungry locals to bang on the vehicle’s side.

“Malcolm has an extraordinary clarity for a young person on his mission in life,” Gerald Warburg, one of Brogdon’s grad-school instructors, told me in 2016.

The ensuing decade has not clouded that vision, witness Brogdon’s Well-Built Foundation, which brings desperately needed clean water to Tanzania, Kenya and Liberia.

Little wonder that Odom already has connected Brogdon with Thijs De Ridder, Johann Grunloh and Chance Mallory, key forces in Virginia’s just-completed 30-6 season, each of whom has signed to return for 2026-27.

Still in its infancy, Brogdon’s advisory role figures to evolve over time, but he foresees multiple layers.

— Mentoring players not only in their academic and basketball pursuits, but also as they navigate contract negotiations and agent relations.

— Helping Odom and his staff determine which positions and players merit the greatest financial investment.

— Engaging with prospective donors to the program.

Brogdon, his wife, Tori, a former UVA volleyball player, and their three children (ages, 5, 3 and 1) recently moved from Brogdon’s native Atlanta to metropolitan New York, so much of Brogdon’s work with the Cavaliers will be done remotely. But understanding the value of in-person encounters, he’s committed to occasional trips to Charlottesville and fundraising events.

While counseling players, Brogdon naturally will offer himself as an example of what to do, and not to do. For example, exercise caution when selecting an agent.

“I had four different agents during my NBA career,” Brogdon said. “It’s a really, really tricky business trying to find the best fit for yourself, someone that’s going to advocate for you, someone that doesn’t have too many clients where you fall through the cracks. Also someone that doesn’t have too few clients where they have no juice for people to pick up the phone.

“I can’t actually imagine having to navigate it in college, but I would have loved to have had a guy like me come back who had seen it and been through it first-hand.”

Perhaps the most important advice: Don’t seclude yourself in the gym and/or classroom.

UVA is “a school full of brilliant-minded people, and these people are going to be leaders,” Brogdon said. “I’m seeing it here in New York. The amount of people, these UVA grads that are CEOs of private equity firms or venture firms, whatever it is. UVA grads come out, and we dominate all over the world.

“I devoted all of my time to basketball and academics, which is hard not to do, if you’re really focused. And for me, it really paid off, so it’s not something I can say I regret. But if I had more bandwidth and I had more perspective, I would have spent more time with my classmates, spent more time with people outside of sports, outside of my wife, and really explored what other opportunities the university had to offer because I think I would have met really interesting people that I would still have relationships with to this day. I’m getting there now. I am being more open, and I feel I’m recovering some of that ground.”

New York’s business hub is part of what drew the Brogdons north. He has invested in various private equity ventures and this fall will intern with Blue Earth Capital, a Swiss investment firm owned by a charitable foundation dedicated to social and environmental causes.

It’s an ideal marriage of Brogdon’s philanthropic and business interests, where, in his words, “profit meets purpose.”

The opportunities with UVA and Blue Earth are among the reasons Brogdon said he doesn’t miss the grind he left in October.

Yes, after an injury-plagued 2024-25 with the dreadful Washington Wizards, the prospect of playing for the New York Knicks, with whom he signed a free-agent contract, was alluring. The franchise is resurgent and calls the basketball mecca of Madison Square Garden home.

But midway through training camp, Brogdon realized it was time to exit, “and no one could convince me otherwise.”

“I’m not one of these guys that felt like I needed basketball,” he said. “Basketball for me, and I’ve always discussed this with my family and close circle, is a means to an end. While I love the game, and the dream was to make it to the NBA, I accomplished what I set out to do, which was to create generational wealth for my family, make my mark on the NBA and become the best player I could.

“My body started to break down, and I felt like I couldn’t recover fast enough to put the best version of myself on the court. Mixed with the mental fatigue that comes from a long career and having to (be) away from your kids, all these factors started to pile up.”

Brogdon scored 7,595 points during nine NBA seasons, playoffs included, while playing for five teams. This after scoring 1,809 points at Virginia, where his No. 15 jersey hangs in the John Paul Jones Arena rafters.

His legacy resonates far louder in Charlottesville than in any NBA city, and though much has changed in the decade since he wore a UVA uniform, he marvels at how Odom is honoring the program’s heritage — Bennett coached the Cavaliers to the 2019 national championship — while adapting it to the modern era.

“It’s really a joy to see that he’s putting his own mark on it,” Brogdon said, “and still keeping the pedigree at an all-time high.”

An essential part of that pedigree, Brogdon has the ambition and experience to help Odom’s Cavaliers reach even higher.

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